


When there are no stars left (you can be the moon to guide me back to the light)

by kingkyungsoo



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Happy ending though, M/M, One Shot, kind of an ambiguous ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:12:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7113034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingkyungsoo/pseuds/kingkyungsoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jongin thought he had lost the all the light when the stars disappeared but Kyungsoo showed him the moon and now he sees the light ten times brighter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When there are no stars left (you can be the moon to guide me back to the light)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first work I have ever posted on here, after years of reading I have finally decided to contribute! It took me a while to finally finish something but here it is comments are much appreciated! I was listening to yanghwa bridge by Zion.t and got somewhat inspired, take from it what you wish. I wrote this at 1am so sorry if I have made any mistakes!

When Jongin was just a child he would spend a lot of time alone by himself in his house, his father worked as a taxi driver and worked till very late and his mother was a teacher and spent a lot of time at her job and didn't come home until after dinner. Jongin was the youngest of three kids he had two older sisters who were 5 and 7 years older than him whom were rarely around. Both of his parents adored the small boy and would spoil him rotten, his father would give him candy and ramen before leaving for work winking at him and ruffling his hair and Jongin stared at his father as if he was all the stars in the night sky. They weren't rich and they weren't poor, they were simply happy.

Jongin used to ask his dad where he was every day on the phone and each time he would laugh and answer “Yanghwa bridge” and Jongin would frown wanting to know where his father really was. Jongin was only ten, he didn't see how hard things were for his family and even if he did he wouldn't have understood but Jongin couldn't help but blame himself, perhaps if he had known he wouldn't have asked for so much and then maybe his father wouldn't have had to work over time, maybe then things would have been different. Maybe if he hadn't called his father that night before he went to bed at 8:30pm, maybe if he had rung when he normally did at 4pm it wouldn't have happened but it did. Jongin rang his dad like any other night and asked where he was and just like always his father laughed and said “yanghwa bridge” before the phone call cut out. Being a child he just handed the phone to his mum thinking nothing was wrong that maybe the signal had cut off as it sometimes did but he was so very wrong. 

It was that night at 8:32pm that a another car swerved into his father's taxi causing this father to lose control of the car and drive off the edge of yanghwa bridge. Jongin thinks it's ironic, so very ironic that it makes him want to laugh maniacally. He was only 10, his family fell into turmoil. They had lost one of their main sources of income. His oldest sister had to drop out of school and get a job to help support them. When Jongin was young he didn't fully understand he knew of course that his father had died but he believed it was his fault. He was old enough to put the blame on himself. He blamed all their money problems on himself, he blamed being evicted from their home for not being able to pay rent on himself. They moved to a tiny apartment on the outskirts of seoul. Jongin grew up feeling a heavy burden on himself, as if someone had stuck gum to the bottom of his shoes so much gum that he struggled to move around as his feet felt as if they were stuck in place and it took great effort for him to do anything.

Jongin felt so bad, he felt terrible he felt as if all his bones were broken and maybe then they would show how broken he felt inside on the outside. At ten he watched his mother weep over bills that were unpaid in the low light of the lamp on their small kitchen table and cry even harder once she saw him staring at her from where he slept on the floor in the living room. His mother was too grief stricken to work and each day she fell deeper into her grief until she barely moved. Jongin was all too used to having cold showers and having the electricity shut off for a few days after the bills were due at twelve. Even though his oldest sister worked so hard to help she was only young too and couldn't support them all on one wage. His mother on most days lay in bed motionless Jongin being the only one who made sure she was fed and clean. His oldest sister would scream at their mother to move to get up and do something, tears would stream down her face and his mother would stare right through her unspoken words streaming out in the form of tears that dripped down her cheeks Jongin felt like they were acid burning the skin off his hands when he ran over after she was finished screaming to wipe his mother tears. With shaking hands he would hold her face in his hands and wipe the tears away and apologize over and over until he fell asleep in his mother's tight grip. 

This guilt grew and grew until he felt like their was a monster living inside of him dragging him down. His grades in school fell not that anyone at his new school cared, they did live in a district full of bad people. But jongin wasn't a bad person he was just lost and confused. At 15 he had never felt so isolated never felt so far away from reality his mother was the same his oldest sister worked two jobs to support them barely having time to sleep, working delivering chicken during the day and worked the night shift at a 24 hour convenience store during the night. His second oldest sister left as soon as she finished school after being accepted into university on a scholarship and he hasn't seen her for two years. Jongin got involved with the wrong crowd soon after turning 16 and got into a huge fight with his sister about it soon after, his sister wanting him to do better in school and have a chance at a better future and to stop hanging out with the thugs in their neighbourhood. Jongin remembers looking at her face for the first time in a while and seeing how tired and worn out she looked, she was deathly pale and sickly looking and jongin couldn't take it anymore it was all his fault, if it weren't for him his sister would probably be happy and healthy. 

He ran out of the house in the middle of the night in a t-shirt and shorts with his bare feet splashing on the wet pavement beneath his feet from the rain the sky had left behind an hour ago. He stumbled through alleyways crashing into the sides of houses with his chest heaving and tears streaming down his face, it's all his fault, he starts scratching at his skin he wants to tear it off, he wants to no longer be himself. He scratches at his arms and chest leaving behind welts with blood seeping through in places. He felt as if he didn't deserve to live, that maybe if he hadn't been born none of this would have happened. He had never wanted to die so much in his life. He stopped running once he reached a playground that was nowhere near where he lived, he had no idea where he was, his surroundings were unfamiliar but it seemed he was in a much nicer neighbourhood than his own. He slowly approaches the swing and sits down with tears still dripping down his face. He knows he must looks a mess, his face swollen from tears with no shoes on, he can feel blood dripping down his arms but he can't bring himself to care. The only thing reminding him he's alive being the puffs of air he can see in the cold night air every time he breaths out.

He looks up at the sky wishing to see the stars he once compared his father too but was met by an inky black sky and the moon shining brightly above him. There were no stars left and jongin cries harder because he felt as if all the light was gone from his life when his father died. He must have been crying very loudly as he hears a door open and a disheveled boy walks out of one of the houses beside the park wrapped in a dark blue dressing gown and slippers rubbing his eyes tiredly and walking toward where Jongin was sitting. He sits down on the swing beside him and Jongin sniffs loudly and attempts to wipe his face of tears that won't stop falling. They sit in silence for a while and Jongin studies the boy who is staring up at the moon. He looks around the same age as Jongin with short black hair with full lips and a fair complexion but it was the eyes that enticed him the most. They were big and expressive, Jongin could tell he was happy looking up at the sky but he couldn't understand why. He looked up at the sky and frowned seeing nothing but an empty pitch black space with no happiness and only suffering.

“Why do you look at they sky as if it has done something bad to you?” The boy asks eyes never leaving the sky.

“Why do you look at it as if it has done something good to you?” Jongin contradicts throat scratchy and tight from crying. The boy laughs and finally looks away from the sky and into Jongin’s eyes.

“Even during the darkest of nights there is still light to be found and that is much like how I view happiness” He simply states.

“I see no light in the sky just as I see no happiness in life” Jongin replies. The boy frowns taking hold of Jongin’s arm that is closest to him running his fingers lightly over the welts that cover it one by one. 

“Is there anywhere you would like to go right now? Somewhere that holds significance to you?” He asks still tracing the welts.

“Yanghwa bridge” Jongin whispers softly.

“I will take you there” The boy says letting go of his arm and standing up.

“Right now?” Jongin asks incredulously.

“Right now” He clarifies 

“But I don't even know your name! Can you even drive!?” Jongin yells.

“I’m Kyungsoo and yes I can drive, I turned 18 last month!” 

“Oh, I’m Jongin I just turned 16 last month”

“Come on then what my mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her” Kyungsoo says heading towards his house still in his dressing gown and slippers making Jongin aware of of his rumpled appearance, at least he has stopped crying. He stands up and rubs his face and walks over to the house Kyungsoo disappeared into. Jongin can't help but think this entire situation is mental, a man he has never meet in his life hears him crying and offers to take him to yanghwa bridge in the middle of the night. It seems completely insane to trust him but Jongin feels as if he has nothing to lose. Kyungsoo comes back with car keys in his grips and ushers Jongin to the car in front of his house, they enter the car and drive in silence. Jongin stares wishfully out the window at the city passing before him hoping for something good to come out of this. They reach the bridge in just under half an hour and Kyungsoo parks at the closest available park to the bridge. Jongin gets out of the car in a daze staring at the bridge his father died on. The streets are empty and the sky is dark as Jongin walks towards the bridge with Kyungsoo following carefully behind. He stops at the start of the bridge and stares across the expanse of it. He wonders where it was on this bridge that his father died he wonders how long it took for him to die whether it was fast or slow and painful and his eyes well up with tears again.

“My father died on this bridge” Jongin says finally.

“Oh, i’m so sorry Jongin” Kyungsoo replies walking up to stand beside Jongin.

“It was my fault you know. I was only 10 and I decided to ring him like any other night, maybe if i hadn’t decided to make that call he would still be alive and things wouldn't have turned out the way they are.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened Jongin. It wasn’t your fault there’s no way you could have known that was going to happen.” Kyungsoo says putting a hand on his shoulder which Jongin quickly shoves off as he walks onto the bridge. He looks up at the sky and laughs.

“Why do i still feel as if it is my fault then? Why do i carry it around on my chest like a sack of bricks making it hard to breathe and each day another brick is added and eventually it’s going to suffocate me”

“You shouldn’t think like that because it isn't true.”

“Well then why do I feel as if it is.” Jongin counters and they fall into an awkward silence.

“Why do you look at the sky as if it has done something bad to you?” Kyungsoo asks again.

“I used to see my father as all the stars in the sky you know, he was the person I looked up to and loved the most in this world but it seems as if when he died all the stars disappeared with him, just like my happiness.”

“Oh, I don’t think I can agree with that.” 

“Okay then why do you look up at the sky as if it has done something good to you?”

“Because even though you can’t see the stars the moon still shines bright reminding us of what's there and what’s to come and to guide us when it seems like there is no light left” Kyungsoo says barely above a whisper. And for the first time in six years Jongin looks at Kyungsoo and he can see the moon reflecting in his eyes brighter than all the stars in the universe and he finally sees the light he missed so much 10 times brighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
